Living in the Land of Make Believe: No Love Allowed

Recently Jada Pinkett Smith posted an interesting entry on FaceBook that gave way to many comments and conversation. Not just on social media, but in a few circles of mine. She said, (referring to Rihanna’s song No Love Allowed) . . .

“I have always loved these words in this song because I believe it is indicative of emotional murder that I see too often. What is emotional murder? How we objectify people in relationships is emotional murder. How we USE people for a FUNCTION in relationships is emotional murder. How we can claim an individual to be the love of our lives but yet replace them within a day or two with a new life-love is…emotional murder. Can true love dispose of love in that way? My opinion is no. My opinion is that we can only dispose of people in that way when we have objectified them. I believe this is very closely related to the objectification of actual murders. I don’t think we recognize how much, in how many ways, or all the justifications we give ourselves to USE people in the name of love. It’s one of the worst crimes. I don’t think we realize how easily we are willing to dispose of a person after the feelings are all used up.

But is it possible to use a person up… if we are actually in a relationship with the person themselves and relating to what we value within them as a human being, as a lover, a wife, a husband, a friend, a mother, a father and so on? Can we dispose of people when we relate to them beyond how they make us feel? With that in mind, if a relationship has changed or altered could it merit disposal? You tell me. -J”

For any of you who’ve read my previous articles, you may know how important I find the conversation on values and the role they play in the success of our lives, as well as all of our relationships and in particular romantic ones. “How we can claim an individual to be the love of our lives but yet replace them within a day or two with a new life-love is…emotional murder.” Sending someone on the high of believing they are the only ones made for us, only to snatch it way later is emotional murder. Sometimes people will take our emotions on a high, only to one day realize they didn’t actually mean it. Because, it wasn’t the love for us as a human being that drew them to us. How many times have you heard people ask “what happened?” or “where did the love go?” when a relationship has ended or the emotional well has run dry? Typically it’s one party in the relationship who has come to realize that they don’t quite need the other person for what he or she once did.

Jada then asks, “Can true love dispose of love in that way?” She believes the answer is no (as do I) and that we can only dispose of people in that

Jada Pinkett Smith

way when we have objectified them. For instance, you grow to “love” someone for what they bring to you and not who they are. Reasons one may fall for another person may be centered around, companionship, wanting to start a family, stability/security, peer/societal/familial pressures, not wanting to have premarital sex, the idea of who the two of you could be together, and many more reasons. Jada goes on to say, “I don’t think we recognize how much, in how many ways, or all the justifications we give ourselves to USE people in the name of love.” I believe she is speaking to the aforementioned examples of reasons we claim to love a person, when actually, what we’re drawn to is the fulfillment of a need that we have. We often time use the “love of our life” to make us feel better about ourselves by attaching the attribute and not the human and what we value.

“But is it possible to use a person up?”, Smith asks. And further says, “If we are actually in a relationship with the person themselves and relating to what we value within them as a human being, as a lover, a wife, a husband, a friend, a mother, a father and so on? . . . Can we dispose of people when we relate to them beyond how they make us feel?” POW! There in lies the question and possibly the answer to “what happened?”.

Unfortunately, our societal and external cues often leave us with an unrealistic view of what love is and how to live within it. What happened? Well, the person gave you “the family” you wanted or the sex after marriage or the warm body you noted as companionship or the status you longed for or the material things that you couldn’t get enough of or the sense of stability . . . but if you didn’t see past the attributes to find the values you aligned with at the core, then unfortunately, disposal of the “love” would be imminent. Whether we leave the relationship physically or emotionally, there is NO LOVE ALLOWED where the love is based on perceived function and not on authentic connection.

Find the true value. Find the love.

Monica Cost is a Brand Strategist for Evidently Assured & the Live Your Truth Experience (L.Y.T.E.). She is the Author of the new life changing book on living an authentic life called, “The Things I Used to do to Sneeze!: How to live an authentic life with awesome sensations” (found at www.monicacost.com) Email her at: [email protected] Follow her via Twitter: @monicacost and Facebook.com/monicahairstoncost. www.monicacost.com. Live true!

One thought on “Living in the Land of Make Believe: No Love Allowed”

I suppose, this can be applied to what having a child might mean to a parent – the mother who thinks giving birth to a child, a boy, will mean the child’s father will want her, or it will mend their relationship.

If that doesn’t happen, if he abandon the family never to be heard from again, how disposable is that child to that mother? And in what ways can that underlying sentiment manifest itself.

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